Missy | June 26, 2007

Van Dyke Street–Red Hook, Brooklyn. Experimentation with the wrong lens.

Smoking, trans fat, now traffic, photography, and noise. The sterilization of New York City continues on.

(Related to the noise bit: Mr. Softee’s theme. Because you know you want that song blaring inside your brain the rest of the day. And related to that: the results of the Mr. Softee theme song project–see “Hear the Songs” section.)

In neighborhood news, I’ve been hearing rumors of Trader Joes coming to within walking distance of my apartment, and it’s looking like it’s going to happen, and closer to me than previously thought. Perhaps this will cut down on my constant going out/take-out consumption by one whole day per week! Also nearby: Floating pool!

Category: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Tags:

Missy | June 11, 2007

Everything ages. Amoeba music store in Berkeley.

As a kid my dad watched Watch Mr. Wizard and I loved, loved, loved Mr. Wizard’s World on Nickelodeon. I think I saw every episode. I loved how he let kids be actively involved and explain what they think will happen with each experiment. Don Herbert, may you rest in peace and know that you were adored. You helped pry open my inquisitive, analytical mind and your program will always be one of my all-time favorites. Supermarket Science!

The man I recently called a fuddy duddy has been eulogizing the careers of four reknowned ballerinas who are ending their careers right about now. (Dancers I can remember admiring when I was young have had astonishingly long careers, but their retirement signals the end of a generation in some sense and a reminder that I am getting old.) Thanks to You Tube, we get to see the Royal Ballet’s Darcey Bussell just as she finishes her final peformance moments before the curtain peels back. (Check this clip of her in the Agon pas de deux. Those legs! That womanly charm!) Then there’s Patricia Barker, who danced for the last time with the Pacific Northwest Ballet. The Seattle Times has a lovely photo essay of Barker. Here in New York, there’s Kyra Nichols of City Ballet–ancient by ballet standards at nearly 50 years old; I’m not sure how she’s still dancing–and Alessandra Ferri of Ballet Theatre, who I will be seeing in Manon this week. I have a story about Ferri: shortly after I moved to New York I went up to Steps to take a dance class in one of its many studios at 74th & Broadway. Steps is known for its high calibre of ballet classes, where many professionals go for morning class. It was there that I saw her taking class, marking through some of the movement, conscious of the mirror and her placement even after all these years of dancing, her small body built for efficiency and precision. I was completely mesmerized. She, by the way, is all over YouTube.

(But YouTube (and live-bloggers), you’ve failed me because I cannot find Frank Langella’s acceptance speech for his well-deserved win of the Tony Award for Best Male Performance in a Play, which was the very definition of class. )

Finally, I watched (most of) The Sopranos when I wasn’t watching the Tony Awards (I could take or leave the musicals portion of the show, which my mother probably considers blaspheme.) The ending: for the first time in the history of the series, I felt what it must be like to live inside Tony’s anxious head. Well done, Mr. Chase.

Category: Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
Tags:

Missy | June 9, 2007

Lion and asp (out of alignment), New York Telephone Co. Building.

It must be PMS season at Listen Missy headquarters, because I’ve noticed myself being a little aggressive in meetings, I want more than anything to be able to beat the butts of the asshole squirrels that have been digging in my flower boxes, and I’ve been quietly mocking my downstairs neighbors who, coming on the heels of their nuptials last year at which point they obtained a monster-sized television + booming sound system for video games and Jerry Bruckheimer movies, have just obtained a second, monster-sized flat panel television (the box was blocking the stairwell the other day). While our apartments are spacious by NYC standards, it is still true that the bedroom is mere feet from the living room and, really, how much tv do you people need? You live in New York City. It’s nice outside.

Speaking of being outside, in addition to the Atlantic Avenue Art Walk happening this weekend (mentioned in the post below), the Red Hook/Carroll Gardens Open Studio Tour is happening as well. [Link to PDF map.] While you’re out, pay a visit to the Red Hook ballfield food vendors.

Category: Uncategorized | Comments Off
Tags:

Missy | June 4, 2007

Cups, St. Francis Fountain & Candy in The Mission

I’m dreaming of Richard Serra. Not since The Gates has anything orange and wavy so captivated the city. Only, this is in my opinion more inspired. Yet just as accessible! (If by ‘accessible’ you mean $20. Except for Fridays after 4.) Not just feats of engineering, Serra’s immense and seductively curved pieces made me conscious of my body, my weight, and my breath. It’s truly engaging work.

Enlivened by the minimalism, I bought Carolyn Brown’s tome, Chance and Circumstance: 20 Years with Cage and Cunningham, reputedly full of well-written insight and anecdotes on the avant garde movement and the important collaboration between John Cage and Merce Cunningham along with other artists such as Robert Rauschenberg.

Except that I also bought another door-stopper book of interest, 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East, which I read about in The Economist and which is described to be the authoritative account not just of the Six-Day War, but of the dynamics both leading up to it and since. I’m not sure if I’m quite in the mood for something so serious: I just finished The Road (good news: that Oprah sticker peels right off!), which I flew through in five nights of my 15 minutes of pre-bedtime reading. I didn’t sleep right during those five nights and I also couldn’t help but think of the movie Testament, another member of the “the world has just been destroyed and so we’re all as good as dead and how do we wrap our heads around this and find the motivation just to get through our days” genre.

Light-hearted: Did you see Knocked Up this weekend? I did, and I was less enthusiastic than I had worked myself up to be. Aside from Katherine Heigl lacking the chops to create a likeable, memorable character like Catherine Keener did in the far-funnier 40 Year Old Virgin, I was put off by the overall personality-less, shrewiness of the female leads. Still, funny and worth the price of admission, but in my mind a disappointment.

Finally, I’ve got plans to redesign this page. The plans are thus: Develop a new graphic, the rest will follow (including a fix to the RSS feed - where are the photos?). At least I’ve made it this far! I’ve got all summer to find my inspiration. (The weather, by the way, is alternately my muse and my b

Category: Uncategorized | 7 Comments »
Tags: